Naor Gilon Drops An Apology Letter To India After Nadav Lapid Called 'The Kashmir Files' As A Vulgar Movie…

Update: 2022-11-29 15:30 IST

It is all known that Anupam Kher's 'The Kashmir Files' emerged as the biggest hit of Bollywood. With the intense content and true story, audience made it hold great records at the ticket windows. But the filmmaker, Nadav Lapid said that the movie is a 'propaganda and 'vulgar movie' at the prestigious International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. But today, Israel's ambassador to India Naor Gilon dropped an apology letter and tried to explain his vision to the Indians.

Along with sharing a pic from the event, Naor also wrote, "An open letter to #NadavLapid following his criticism of #KashmirFiles. It's not in Hebrew because I wanted our Indian brothers and sisters to be able to understand. It is also relatively long so I'll give you the bottom line first. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED. Here's why:

1. In Indian culture they say that a guest is like God. You have abused in the worst way the Indian invitation to chair the panel of judges at @IFFIGoa as well as the trust, respect and warm hospitality they have bestowed on you.

2. Our Indian friends brought @lioraz and @issacharoff from @FaudaOfficial in order to celebrate the love in #India towards #Fauda and #Israel. I suspect that this is maybe also one of the reasons they invited you as an Israeli and me as the ambassador of Israel. I understand your need in retrospect to "justify" your behavior but I can't understand why you told @ynetnews afterwards that the minister and I said on stage that there is similarity between our countries because "we fight a similar enemy and reside in a bad neighborhood".

We did speak about the similarities and closeness between our countries. The minister spoke about his visits to Israel, it being a Hi-Tech nation and the potential of combining this with the film industry. I spoke about the fact that we grew up watching Indian films.

I also said that we should be humble when India, with such a great film culture, is consuming Israeli content (Fauda and more).

3. I'm no film expert but I do know that it's insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them and which are an open wound in India because many of the involved are still around and still paying a price.

4. As a son of a holocaust survivor, I was extremely hurt to see reactions in India to you that are doubting Schindler's List, the Holocaust and worse. I unequivocally condemn such statements. There is no justification. It does show the sensitivity of the Kashmir issue here.

5. From your interview to Ynet the connection you make between your criticism of #KashmirFiles and your dislike to what is happening in Israeli politics was quite evident.

My suggestion. As you vocally did in the past, feel free to use the liberty to sound your criticism of what you dislike in Israel but no need to reflect your frustration on other countries. I'm not sure that you have enough factual basis to make such comparisons. I know I don't.

6. You will go back to Israel thinking that you are bold and "made a statement". We, the representatives of Israel, would stay here. You should see our DM boxes following your "bravery" and what implications it may have on the team under my responsibility.

The friendship between the people and the states of India and Israel is very strong and will survive the damage you have inflicted.

As a human being I feel ashamed and want to apologize to our hosts for the bad manner in which we repaid them for their generosity and friendship."

The Kashmir Files showcases us the Kashmir pundits' pain and makes us witness how they suffered during the separation period. The terror, confusion and sheer panic made us connect to the movie. On the one side, the terrorists started their movement and on the other side, politicians and a few others began their 'Separate Kashmir' movement, but amid all these incidents, the people suffered a lot as they were forced to leave the state too.

This movie is helmed by Vivek Agnihotri and is bankrolled by Tej Narayan Agarwal, Abhishek Agarwal, Pallavi Joshi and Vivek Agnihotri under the Zee Studios, IAmBuddha and Abhishek Agarwal Arts banners. It showcased ace actors Mithun Chakraborty as Brahma Dutt, Anupam Kher as Pushkarnath, Darshan Kumar as Krishna Pandit, Pallavi Joshi as Radhika Menon, Bhasha Sumbali as Shraddha Pandit, Chinmay Mandlekar as Farooq Malik aka Bitta (Inspired by Farooq Ahmed Dar), Puneet Issar as DGP Hari Narain, Prakash Belawadi as Dr. Mahesh Kumar, Mrinal Kulkarni as Laxmi Dutt, Bhasha Sumbli as Sharda Pandit, Atul Srivastava as Vishnu Ram and Prithviraj Sarnaik as Shiva Pandit. The Kashmir Files movies was released on 11th March, 2022!

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